Onizawa, the self-styled Chief Elder of a bogus religious sect called Heaven's Path, has been brought in for questioning about some illicit real estate deals and a sizable amount of unreported income.

Having begun on a note of poetic confession, Onizawa seizes the banner of patriotism.

''I open land for Japan,'' he tells the startled tax investigators. ''Tokyo must be an international center, but there isn't office space. We must build more buildings, but where? You'll never use eminent domain. That's why we must act.'' The bureaucrats aren't ready for Onizawa's passion, but then they don't know Onizawa.

The old man works himself into a froth. ''To revitalize Japan,'' he says, ''someone must do the dirty work. Without us, Tokyo will be bypassed by Hong Kong and Seoul. Do you want that? Do you want Japan to become a second-rate power?''

He rises from the table and begins to bash his head furiously against the white wall. Blood drips from both the wall and Onizawa as he screams: ''I'm being tortured! I'm being tortured!''

Onizawa, his head bandaged, his nostrils stuffed with cotton, returns home from the interview very pleased with himself.

Onizawa is a vicious, lecherous, crafty old rogue, who, when he must, deals in murder. That he also is unexpectedly engaging is due in part to the rich performance by Mr. Mikuni, a kind of Japanese Raimu, whose face is collapsing but whose eyes remain implacably fixed on the prize.

Mostly, though, the character is a reflection of the particular satiric talent of Mr. Itami, who wrote and directed ''The Funeral,'' ''Tampopo,'' ''A Taxing Woman'' and, now, ''A Taxing Woman's Return.''

Mr. Itami plays against expectations. He loves having the wrong people say things the audience might think are right, or almost. In allowing Onizawa to be so persuasive, he gives folly and corruption a human face. Had this most witty and original of contemporary Japanese directors made ''Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,'' Mr. Smith would have been a secondary character. Mr. Itami is far less interested in celebrating virtue than in dissecting mendacity.

''A Taxing Woman's Return'' is a sequel, but it's a very different kind of movie from the first, which introduced the ''taxing woman,'' Ryoko (Nobuko Miyamoto), the former housewife who, after one setback and another, finds self-realization as a tax inspector.

In the new film, Ryoko is a fully formed character, one who functions much in the way of the lead of a television series. ''A Taxing Woman's Return'' is about Ryoko's further adventures, this time with Mishima (Toru Masuoka), a callow young Tokyo University graduate, as her partner.

Their immediate objective is the Heaven's Path religious cult, which is suspiciously rich for what looks to be a comparatively modest collection of fanatics. Their work isn't easy. It turns out that there are more registered religions in Tokyo than there are barbers.

Onizawa and his wife, the Holy Matriarch (Haruko Kato), drive around in his and hers Rolls-Royces. The Holy Matriarch has a special fondness for floor-length sable coats and Onizawa for women, especially for Nana, the pig-tailed 16-year-old who has been left with him as collateral on a loan.

The movie proceeds as a cat-and-mouse game as Ryoko and Mishima investigate the Heaven's Path cult and discover that Onizawa is, in fact, the front man for a group of crooked businessmen and corrupt members of the Diet.

This unholy alliance is changing the skyline of Tokyo, evicting tenants, buying land and putting up the sorts of spectacular high-rises that now dominate the city's western district of Shinjuku. The fruits of this real estate boom have nothing to do with the traditional Tokyo in which form has, until now, followed function. The ''new'' Tokyo could be the last Tokyo.

This is the subtext of the movie, which goes out of its way to disguise its serious concerns.

In ''A Taxing Woman's Return,'' Mr. Itami employs the mechanics of movie melodrama with unabashed gusto - stake-outs, car chases, disguises, secret chambers and even the kind of mysterious jewel that might turn up in an ''Indiana Jones'' adventure. With the exception of Onizawa, the movie is less interested in character than in scene, which is tumultuous and often Bunuelian.

Nothing could be more Bunuelian than the wintery love affair of Onizawa and the innocent Nana. She comes to adore the dirty old man who makes her pregnant and who then, as a sign of his undying love, proudly buys her a cemetery plot next to his mausoleum.

There is also something of Luis Bunuel in Mr. Itami's eagerness to disorient his audience with, perhaps, a sudden shot of a severed hand, or the lingering image of a corpse that's been some weeks in the water.

Representing the film's conscience are Ryoko, Mishima and their comically gung-ho colleagues though, except for a parting glance at the end, they never betray their feelings in any overt fashion. Miss Miyamoto, in her Louise Brooks bob and wearing modishly baggy slacks, is a steadfast charmer, and a far more endearing crime buster than Batman.

As photographed by Yonezo Maeda and scored by Toshiyuki Honda (who is to Mr. Itami what Nino Rota was for Federico Fellini), ''A Taxing Woman's Return'' has the flashy look and romantic sound that have become the director's singular style.

However, don't be deceived by the cool, breezy manner of ''A Taxing Woman's Return.'' It scalds.

It's another major film from the man who is possibly the only true social satirist at work in movies today.
Tokyo for Sale
A TAXING WOMAN'S RETURN, directed and written by Juzo Itami; in Japanese with English subtitles; director of photography, Yonezo Maeda; edited by Akira Suzuki; music by Toshiyuki Honda; production design by Shuji Nakamura; produced by Yasushi Tamaoki and Seigo Hosogoe; a New Yorker Films Release. At the Cinema Studio, Broadway and 66th St. Running time: 127 minutes. This film has no rating.
Ryoko Itakura ... Nobuko Miyamoto
Teppei Onizawa ... Rentaro Mikuni
Inspector Mishima ... Toru Masuoka
Assistant Chief Inspector Hanamura ... Masahiko Tsugawa
Chief Inspector Sadohara ... Tetsuro Tanba
Nekota ... Koichi Ueda
Shorty Masa ... Mansaku Fuwa